Troy Feener

Patience

Category:  Nature

Leopard in Serengeti, Tanzania; 70-200 F4L with 1.4xTC, Canon XTi; Tritone processed in Photoshop.  The guide of our Serengeti safari was named Baraka, which means "Blessing" in Swahili - and we were truly blessed in seeing three different leopards on three separate occasions over our 5 day trip.  On this sighting we watched in frustration as the leopard was chased through the tall grass by a photographer in a Landrover.  After ten minutes or so the photographer gave up and returned to the road only to have the big cat appear beside her truck and calmly and deliberately scratch itself against the bumper while she stood helplessly watching, her massive zoom lens wasted on such a close-up subject.  She drove off in frustration while we continued to watch and photograph the leopard for another hour or so; and the leopard patiently allowed us to be a part of it's world of solitude and beauty.

Troy Feener

Spice Girl

Category:  Faces Around the World

Spice arm on Zanzibar Island, Tanzania, 17-35mm Tamron, Canon XTi, Triton processed in Photoshop.  Sometimes in life the moment speaks for itself.  On a tour to a spice farm in romantic Zanzibar, our group was assailed by people, many of them children, shouting "Jambo" and then asking for a dollar to take their picture.  This little girl was different.  Fearless, almost brazenly so and with no thought of profit, she trailed our group and then suddenly at the end, while others were far ahead purchasing spices, she jumped in front of me: large eyes, and an even more gregarious smile, she
is the embodiment of "Girl Power".

1st Place

Robert Postma

Humbled

While exploring Ellesmere Island, I noticed on the horizon, a large iceberg that had been stranded in the ice. After an hour on a sled, I was amazed with the sheer immensity of the behemoth. I quickly felt very insignificant in the grand scale of life as I stood there looking up at the truly awe inspiring mountain of ice knowing that without warning, it could roll on us. A rather humbling moment.

2nd Place

Alan Kucey

Mt Lougheed

I was driving along the Smith-Dorrien Trail with my Dad a couple of winters ago when we saw a some dog-sledders coming off the ice.  We pulled into the parking lot at Driftwood to see the dogs and talk with the British soldiers returning from their survival training.  Getting out of the car, I looked up to the south and was overwhelmed with the clouds rolling over Mt. Lougheed.  I took about a dozen shots but it was the first one that really stood out from the rest.
 I took the picture with my Pentax K20D with my 18-55mm lens 1/350sec @  f6.7 ISO100.

3rd Place

Todd Berry

Niagara at Night

This photo was captured while standing on the US side of Niagara Falls looking back onto the Canadian side. I had to wait to get a viewing spot to set up my tripod. A great deal of tourist taking in the beauty and power of the falls and the magnificent light show.
Details of the photo; taken September 26, 2007 with my Nikon D50 camera, ISO 250 f/3.5 0.6 sec. I believe I used a neutral density (nd4) filter to cut some of the glare from the spot light. 

1st Place

Steve Fagan

Monk

After spending a busy day performing his duties at the Gom Kora Festival (near Trashigang in Eastern Bhutan) this young monk has found some quiet time.  He seems quite content just relaxing and watching the many visitors from neighboring villages partake in the festivities. 

2nd Place

Jeremy Nielsen

Caragena Fruit

I took this photograph in May of this year while attending a wedding in Cartagena, Colombia.  We were sitting in Plaza de Santo Domingo having lunch and hiding out from the sun and I was watching this woman across the plaza as she set-up shop in front of an old church.  I don’t think she sold any fruit, but lot’s of tourists stopped to take her photo.  She was a natural!  Shot with a Canon 5D Mk II with a 70-200mm lens.

3rd Place

Ricardo Nagaoka

Street Angel

A lonely street performer having a smoke break in the bustling streets of Barcelona, Spain. Taken with a Canon 5D.

1st Place

Leon Berger

Secret Smile

At a certain level of Japanese society, young women are encouraged to be modest in outward displays of emotion, so a spontaneous smile is often instinctively covered by a hand. By chance, I caught this evening scene on the sidewalk outside the Kabuki Theatre in the Ginza district of Tokyo with a Minolta SLR, 135 mm lens, using black-and-white Kodak 400 ASA film.  

2nd Place

Kieron Nelson

Tuareg & Camel

Niger, Sahara Desert. Tuareg and white camel.

3rd Place

Steve Fagan

Making a Living

While visiting an early morning market in Kolkata, India I was intrigued by the environment of entrepreneurship, some of which was driven by the peoples desire to fend for themselves but much of which was necessitated by the extreme challenges of daily life in this city of more than 15 million people.  To improve her chance of selling her few items, this woman had arrived early to secure her location before the area was overtaken by hundreds of other vendors.

1st Place

Jonathan Eger

Controlled Chaos

My family and I were feeding the ducks in Collingwood, Ontario. Once in a while, if we got too close, the ducks would get scared and fly about 20 feet away, before slowly making their way back to the shore. This specific photograph was taken on the 2nd day of feeding. I took more than 250 photographs, and this was my favorite of the bunch. Taken from the waters edge, about 5 feet above water level.Taken with a Canon EOS-5D and Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS. Camera settings: ISO 800, f/8.0, 1/800, manual focus.

2nd Place

Cheeryl Alexander

On a Wing & A Prayer

Into a strong wind blowing off Lake Ontario, a lone Monarch Butterfly begins its 5000 kilometer journey to Mexico where its ancestors, four generations before, began their migration north. For this Monarch, it is the start of a migration beginning over the Great Lakes, jumping off from Presqu'ile Peninsula on Lake Ontario. Sometimes, thousands of Monarch Butterflies will gather on the shores of Presqu'ile, clumping colorfully together on bushes before starting off!
How do the Monarch Butterflies know where to go and how to get there??! To date, no one really knows.

3rd Place

Robert Postma

Leap of Faith

I was travelling up the Dempster Highway in the Yukon and found this fox hunting rodents for the better part of 2 hours. As it strode over the snow, it would occassionally stop, tilt its head side to side pinpointing exactly where it would jump to and then leap about 2 feet in the air and pounce into the snow head first. About 1 out of every 3 times, it would come up with a mouse in its mouth and happily wolf it down before moving on to the next potential meal.